We Might As Well Be Strangers
by HeartlessLittleHamster
Summary: An old photo on the table, dancing shadows of the candle revealed teardrops on the male's face and the beginnings of a crack to separate the married couple. A photo says more than thousand words. Thousand words for Tori.


**Summary: **An old photo on the table, dancing shadows of the candle revealed teardrops on the male's face and the beginnings of a crack to separate the married couple. A photo says more than thousand words. Thousand words for Tori.

**~x~**

**We Might As Well Be Strangers**

He doesn't love her anymore. She knew it. He never kissed her like he used to do; stroking her messy hair with his fingers before pressing his always cold lips on hers.

They were growing apart from the moment she found out she was pregnant, Tori knew it. This baby wasn't a blessing or a symbol of their love as everybody thought it was, but the baby was marking them. And how much Tori thought she knew her husband, she couldn't understand why he didn't want a child of his own. Ivan was great with his sister's children and his younger cousins.

The door went open and a chill breeze filled the room, making Tori shiver underneath her woollen sweater; an early Christmas gift from her little brother. The green matched her eyes. A card was added in which Raivis wrote how much he hoped that the sweeter was warm enough for her during the cold Russian winter days. Her little brother was such a charmer.

Raivis was the cute one, Eduard the lucky one and she had made herself the strong one. Because an older sister, a role model, couldn't be the silent one. Ivan always told her that she never had been the silent one, but the sweet one. He never told her that anymore. Maybe she wasn't the sweet one anymore, or the silent one. The loveless one.

No one entered the room. It must have been the wind playing with the lose door again, Ivan had promised to fix the door before the winter but that promise was thrown away. Like he threw away a lot of things.

Was it love that had bound them together? She knew she loved Ivan with whole her heart but her husband had become more and more of a mystery to her. When did he decide to stop loving her? When she told him that she was pregnant or when they had their first fight, a couple of months ago over a broken vase? Did he even love her when he married her?

She rubbed her stomach, receiving being tickled from the woollen fabric and a kick from the baby. Tori could remember how happy she was when she first felt the baby kick and with how much excitement she told her sisters-in-law and brothers. But she could still feel the heartbreak of when Ivan wasn't happier than the others all together. He had promised afterwards, saying he didn't know how to react and kissed her stomach. How could she be so blind to not see it? Maybe because this was her first child and everything was so new to her.

The painting she painted last summer, a vase full pretty sunflowers, seemed to cheer her up a little. Ivan and she both loved sunflowers. Maybe their baby would grow up loving the sunflowers as much as his parents did. Sunflowers represent happiness than why was her house filled with paintings of them? Tori wasn't happy. Ivan wasn't happy. The baby wouldn't be happy.

But happy thoughts were what the doctor advised her, happy thoughts and trying to create a closer bond between the three of them.

Was Tori strong or heartless? Why didn't she cry when she thought Ivan didn't love her anymore? Was she fooling herself or did she stop loving him too, without realizing it herself?

No, she loved the Ivan she married to and the Ivan she had kissed every year under the mistletoe for seven years now. But she didn't love the Ivan who hangs around her these days, who worked all day and only kissed her cheek when he arrived home late.

Maybe it was the stress of becoming parents, rather than the baby itself, that caused separation between them. But Ivan would be the perfect parent, Tori could tell by how eager his niece Roanja was every year to stay with her uncle and aunt. Everyday she spend here with her uncle, she fell asleep with a blissful look and red cheeks. Roanja was upstairs now, sleeping like a rose in the spare bedroom. While her baby had fallen asleep too.

She walked over to the phone and dialled the number she always picked when she needed some good girl advise from the outside. Feliks. Her best guy friend from back home, Lithuania.

"I need advice." She said with a tone that not revealed her emotions and hollow feeling, as soon as she heard that the phone was picked up. "Tell me, I'm here for you Tori." Feliks answered and Tori knew he already lay on the couch with chocolate and magazines with the radio on. Sometimes he such a girl. "Promise you won't tell Eduard or Raivis? I don't want them to be disappointed in me, you know how much they mean to me."

"Sometimes your pride is just too much, sweet Tori. What was it again? You wanted to be the role model for your little brothers, the so called 'strong one'? Believe me, they wouldn't think less about you, they never did. Not even when you almost ran away with that American." She could hear her friend giggle about an old memory from long ago and she knew that everything would be alright. She had found her shoulder to cry one once again. Her friend Feliks, the one who was always there for her.

"Would I be stupid and selfish if I didn't give me and Ivan another change? To talk things out for the baby's sake? Or is it better if I ended our relationship?" This idea wasn't working, she needed a shoulder to cry on. If she intended to cry. But Tori knew, recalling the events from the past few weeks, that she wouldn't cry when she was alone. She promised herself long ago that she would only cry in front of the persons she loved and right now, she didn't love herself.

She was unsure why Ivan had loved her and if he still did love her.

**Fin**

**~x~**

The side story of 'Lovely', the feelings of Tori as her marriage shows cracks. I wrote this to clear a few things about Tori's reaction in chapter three of 'Lovely' in which she tells about what happens next.

Most people would say, your first fight no big deal. But to most people, the first cracks are a sign whether or not to continue your marriage.

And yes, my story was too pretty to have a disclaimer at the top. So I 'forgot' it.

Maybe this clears things for the person who reviews it. Who I adore and spam until I die, about the spam part I'm kidding. I know I'm not allowed to do that. Yet.

XxHeartlessLittleHamster


End file.
